//------------------------------//
// Mirror 
// Story: Personas 
// by HeartofSilver 
//------------------------------//

‘I’m so happy, cause I found my friends…..’

Gray Sky slowly opened her eyes as her alarm went off. Some may cry about the impracticality of using music as an alarm, but Sky was always awake by the first verse despite how soft it was.  This was considerably odd, since the song playing was entirely instrumental.

Loud pops echoed around the room as she stretched with a loud yawn. With great care, she stepped out of bed, bare feet flinching as they came in contact with the cold hardwood floor. She stood tall in her room, glancing at the posters and pictures covering the small space that was illuminated by the sunlight streaming in through a window. Those sunbeams were one of the only sources of light in the room; the other was the various candles, all of various lengths and sizes, strewn around her room. The power had been shut off long ago.

A few small strides brought Gray Sky to her bathroom. The first thing she did as she entered the space was examine herself in the mirror; everything looked the same as it did everyday. Light gray skin, pink eyes, bright white hair, all set onto the face of someone in their late teens. Gray Sky stared into the mirror for a few seconds, a completely blank look upon her face. No emotion was present….that is, until she began to laugh. Chuckles turned into chortles, chortles into giggles, giggles into full-belly laughter.

‘CRACK!’

In a split second, the mirror was shattered, the young girl’s fist planted in the center. She slowly pulled it away from the former mirror, bringing it up to her eyes for inspection. Covered in blood, with a few shards of glass still embedded in some areas. She pulled those out without even a wince.

‘We broke our mirror…..’, some voice, somewhere whispered.

Sky couldn’t help but admire the new pattern in her mirror. The cracks blossomed out from the point of impact like a flower, a beautiful contrast to what was there before. At least now she didn’t have to se-

“Best not go down that road,” the young girl chided herself as she grabbed some cases from the counter of the vanity. “Time to get ready for the day.”

“Now…” she began, perusing her many options, “who will I be today?”

Sky’s hands hovered over a row of contact cases, straying longer over some, until she picked one up, popping it open to reveal the treasure inside.

“Ooooo, Ruby Rose! I love her!” Sky squealed in delight as she delicately inserted the contacts into her eyes, changing them from their normal bubblegum pink to a bright, fiery looking red. She analyzed herself in the shattered mirror for a moment, scrutinizing the color of her eyes with all the care of an expert jeweller, before nodding in satisfaction. Time for step two.

With the fervor she always seemed to have as she got ready in the morning, Sky opened the bottom cabinet of the bathroom vanity, a large space that could hold plenty of whatever she decided to shove in there, including mannequin heads. A lot of mannequin heads. With wigs, of course.

She quickly snatched the one she wanted, a maroon-colored piece with a braid in the back. She went about the process of putting it on with expert precision, her eyes always looking at herself in the broken mirror, smile growing as her appearance changed. 

With the same appraising eye as before, Sky examined herself in the mirror. Finally satisfied, she turned away from the mirror, making her way back to her bedroom. There, among all the half-burnt candles and little trinkets, she had outfits of an eclectic variety scattered all over the floor. Stepping around a few, she bent over to pick up just what she had been looking for: a businessy looking outfit, complete with a white collared shirt, gray jacket, and gray skirt. 

“Perfect,” Sky slipped the outfit on, straightening out any wrinkles here and there, making sure everything fit properly, until everything seemed okay. “This is totally something Ruby Rose would wear!”

“I mean,” she coughed, massaging her throat a bit before speaking again, albeit this time in a deeper, more mature sounding voice. “Surely this is something I would wear.”

Perhaps Gray Sky was perfectly aware of what she was doing. Perhaps she wasn’t. Perhaps she didn’t realize that she loathed herself so much that the only solution seemed to be to annihilate Gray Sky and become someone else entirely. Perhaps she did, but she simply didn’t care. After all, what’s the difference between ignorance and indifference?

Maybe all these personas were just illusions. Maybe they were real and she was the illusion. Maybe she had a form of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Maybe she just liked to play pretend a bit too much. At the end of the day, there was no difference; the end result was the same. Gray Sky would be gone, and someone else would take her place.

Ruby Rose made her way out of Gray Sky’s room, a confident gait replacing the exuberant steps of before. She walked down the hallway of peeling paint and broken floorboards, past the kitchen of dirty dishes and destroyed cabinets, and past the living room of ruined furniture. She seemed to notice none of it, caught in her own little world as she made her way through the house. She only stopped to spare a glance at a piece of paper on a small table near the front door, and her mask of cool confidence cracked as she did.

“Goodbye, Mom and Dad,” Gray Sky whispered before Ruby Rose opened the front door, ready for the day ahead.

The piece of paper appeared to be a news clipping, somewhat old it seemed as the edges were starting to yellow with edge. Tear drops stained the paper, completely obscuring some words. But, despite everything, the title was still quite clear.

‘Local Couple Tragically Killed In Car Crash’